SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating two suspect for alleged drug distribution.

According to the United State’s Attorney’s office, Samantha Jo Case, 27, Wichita, Kan., and Robert Lee Forgie, 28, Wichita, Kan., each are charged with one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm in furtherance of drug trafficking.

Police arrested them in Sedgwick County on July 23, according to the daily booking report.

 If convicted, they face a penalty of not less than five years and not more than 40 years on the drug charge and not less than five years on the gun charge.

Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts says he will not run for re-election in 2020, opening the door to a parade of candidates announcing a run or considering jumping into the race to replace him. Multiple Republicans are eyeing the seat, and it could be the first time Democrats have a competitive U.S. Senate primary since the 1990s.

Here’s the rundown of who’s seeking the seat in Washington:

REPUBLICANS

Kris Kobach 

Residence: Near Lecompton

Nationally, Kobach is known as a hardliner against illegal immigration. But in Kansas, he’s coming off a 2018 loss for the governor’s office. When he was secretary of state from 2011 to 2019, he pushed for strict voter registration changes, arguing they would help prevent voter fraud. Critics said the rules made it too difficult for eligible voters to register and the requirements were blocked by a federal court. Kobach is a long-time ally of President Donald Trump, and he says he’ll push Trump’s policies and fight what he calls the establishment in Washington. He’s currently working with a private organization attempting to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Jake LaTurner

Residence: Topeka

LaTurner was a state senator from southeast Kansas before then-Gov. Sam Brownback picked him in 2017 to become treasurer. He’s since won a full term in the office and touts conservative credentials. LaTurner was the first high-profile candidate for formally jump into the U.S. Senate race, giving him an early start on fundraising. He says he’d push for term limits and for building a wall on the southern border.

Dave Lindstrom

Residence: Overland Park

Lindstrom is a former Kansas City Chief turned businessman who’s chairman of the board for the Kansas Turnpike Authority. After his NFL career, Lindstrom owned four Burger King restaurants in the Kansas City area and worked in real estate. Like other Republicans in the race, Lindstrom isvoicing his support for Trump and says he’ll bring free-market ideas and a conservative perspective to the Senate.

Susan Wagle

Residence: Wichita

Wagle is the first woman to become president of the Kansas Senate (2013-current). A conservative who has been a vocal critic of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, Wagle and Kelly have clashed on issues like Medicaid expansion and tax policy. Wagle touts her years of work in support of abortion restrictions approved by Kansas lawmakers. She’ll continue serving as Senate president while campaigning for the U.S. Senate. Wagle is a cancer survivor, and counts health care issues among her top priorities, saying government health care isn’t the answer to challenges in the industry.

Filed paperwork to run or explore the race:

• Gabriel Mark Robles, from Topeka

DEMOCRATS

Nancy Boyda

Residence: Baldwin City

Boyda spent one term as a U.S. representative for the 2nd District, ending in 2009. Though she ended up in Washington after defeating an incumbent Republican, she lost the 2008 election to Republican Lynn Jenkins. Boyda is a farmer who says she’ll focus on working across the aisleto break gridlock.

Barry Grissom

Residence: Leawood

In 2010, President Barack Obama picked Grissom to serve as U.S. attorney for Kansas. Grissom highlights his experience, as well as prosecutions of people who plotted to bomb the Wichita airport and Fort Riley. As an attorney, Grissom says he has fought against racism and unfair wages. He’s also campaigned for loosening laws on marijuana, saying it’s not a good use of taxpayer resources.

Other Democrats who have filed paperwork to run or explore the race:

• Adam Smith, from Mission
• Robert Leon Tillman, from Wichita

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter for KPR and the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio covering health, education and politics. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda or email skoranda (at) ku (dot) edu.

PAWNEE COUNTY — One person died in an accident just before 7p.m. Saturday in Pawnee County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1992 Chevy Astro van driven by Joseph Carson Saenz, 18, Larned, was southbound on U.S. 183 thirteen miles south of Rush Center. The van traveled off the road into the east ditch. It came back on to the road and traveled into the west ditch and rolled.

EMS transported Saenz and a passenger Joshua Lujan Saenz, 16, Larned, to the hospital in Hays were Joseph Saenz died. Joshua Saenz was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.

Two mass shootings at crowded public places in Texas and Ohio in less than 24 hours claimed at least 29 lives and left scores injured, a shocking carnage even in a country accustomed to gun violence.

In the Texas border city of El Paso, a gunman opened fireSaturday morning in a shopping area packed with thousands of people during the busy back-to-school season, killing 20 and injuring more than two dozen, many of them critically. The shooting was being investigated as a possible hate crime as authorities worked to confirm whether a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted online shortly beforehand was written by the man arrested in the attack on the 680,000-resident border city.

Just hours later in Dayton, Ohio, a gunman wearing body armorand carrying extra magazines opened fire in a popular nightlife area, killing nine and injuring at least 26 people.

The Saturday shooting in El Paso and the Sunday shooting in Dayton were the 21st and 22nd mass killings of 2019 in the U.S., according to the AP/USA Today/Northeastern University mass murder database that tracks homicides where four or more people killed — not including the offender.

Including the two latest attacks, 125 people had been killed in the 2019 shootings.

——————-

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Twenty people were killed and more than two dozen injured in a shooting Saturday in a busy shopping area in the Texas border town of El Paso, the state’s governor said.

Among the possibilities being investigated is whether it was a hate crime, the police chief said. Two law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity identified the suspect taken into custody as 21-year-old Patrick Crusius. El Paso police haven’t released his name, but confirmed the gunman is from Allen near Dallas.

Police said another 26 people were injured and most were being treated at hospitals. Most of the victims were believed to have been shot at a Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall, they said, adding that the store was packed with as many as 3,000 people during the busy back-to-school shopping season.

“The scene was a horrific one,” said El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen, who described many of those hurt as having life-threatening injuries. He also said police found a post online that may have been written by the suspect — one reason authorities are looking at whether it was a hate crime.

El Paso, which has about 680,000 residents, is in West Texas and sits across the border from Juarez, Mexico.

Residents were quick to volunteer to give blood to the injured after the shooting, and police and military members were helping people look for missing loved ones.

“It’s chaos right now,” said Austin Johnson, an Army medic at nearby Fort Bliss, who volunteered to help at the shopping center and later at a school serving as a reunification center.

Adriana Quezada, 39, said she was in the women’s clothing section of Walmart with her two children when she “heard shots.”

“But I thought they were hits, like roof construction,” she said.

Her 19-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son threw themselves to the ground, then ran out of the store through an emergency exit. They were not hurt, Quezada said.

She said she saw four men, dressed in black, moving together firing guns indiscriminately. Police later said they believed the suspect was the “sole shooter” but were continuing to investigate reports that others were involved.

El Paso police Sgt. Robert Gomez said the suspect, who used a rifle, was arrested without incident.

The shooting came less than a week after a gunman opened fire on a California food festival. Santino William Legan, 19, killed three people and injured 13 others last Sunday at the popular Gilroy Garlic Festival, and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Ryan Mielke, a spokesman for University Medical Center of El Paso, said 13 people were brought to the hospital with injuries after the Texas shooting, including one who died. Two of the injured were children who were being transferred to El Paso Children’s Hospital, he said. He wouldn’t provide additional details on the victims.

Eleven other victims were being treated at Del Sol Medical Center, hospital spokesman Victor Guerrero said. Those victims’ ages ranged from 35 to 82, he said.

Gov. Greg Abbott, who confirmed the number of victims at a news conference, called the shooting “a heinous and senseless act of violence” and said the state had deployed a number of law enforcement officers to the city. President Donald Trump tweeted: “Reports are very bad, many killed.”

Presidential candidate and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke appeared a bit shaken as he appeared at a candidate forum Saturday in Las Vegas shortly after news of the shooting in his hometown was reported. The Democrat said the shooting shatters “any illusion that we have that progress is inevitable” on tackling gun violence.

He said he heard early reports that the shooter might have had a military-style weapon, saying we need to “keep that (expletive) on the battlefield. Do not bring it into our communities.”

“We have to find some reason for optimism and hope or else we consign ourselves to a future where nearly 40,000 people a year will lose their lives to gun violence and I cannot accept that,” O’Rourke said.

El Paso has become a focal point of the immigration debate, drawing Trump in February to argue that walling off the southern border would make the U.S. safer, while city residents and O’Rourke led thousands on a protest march past the barrier of barbed wire-topped fencing and towering metal slats.

O’Rourke stressed that border walls haven’t made his hometown safer. The city’s murder rate was less than half the national average in 2005, the year before the start of its border fence. Before the wall project started, El Paso had been rated one of the three safest major U.S. cities going back to 1997.

Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, also said the El Paso shooting suspect wasn’t on her group’s radar screen prior to the shooting.

“We had nothing in our files on him,” Beirich wrote in an email.

The shooting is the 21st mass killing in the United States in 2019, and the fifth public mass shooting. Before Saturday, 96 people had died in mass killings in 2019 — 26 of them in public mass shootings.

The AP/USATODAY/Northeastern University mass murder database tracks all U.S. homicides since 2006 involving four or more people killed, not including the offender, over a short period of time regardless of weapon, location, victim-offender relationship or motive. The database shows that the median age of a public mass shooter is 28, significantly lower than the median age of a person who commits a mass shooting of their family.

Since 2006, 11 mass shootings — not including Saturday’s — have been committed by men who are 21 or younger.

———-

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Multiple fatalities are reported and  many others were seriously injured and at least one suspect was in custody after a shooting Saturday at a shopping mall in the Texas border town of El Paso, hospital officials and police said.

Police responded in the early afternoon to an active shooter scene at the Cielo Vista Mall, near Interstate 10 on the east side of the city, and were advising people to stay away from the area and to look for missing family members at a school being used as a reunification area. Police and witnesses said at least some of the shootings happened in a Walmart in the shopping complex.

Ryan Mielke, a spokesman for University Medical Center of El Paso, said 12 people were brought to the hospital with injuries, including one that died. Two of the injured were children who were being transferred to El Paso Children’s Hospital, he said. He declined to provide additional details on the victims.

Eleven other victims were being treated at Del Sol Medical Center, according to hospital spokesman Victor Guerrero. He said those victims ages ranged from 35 to 82.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the shooting “a heinous and senseless act of violence” and said the state had deployed a number of law enforcement officers to the city.

A family of three was among a dozen people waiting outside a bus station. They were trying to return to their car that was in a blocked-off Walmart parking lot.

“I heard the shots but I thought they were hits, like roof construction,” said Adriana Quezada, 39, who was in the women’s clothing section of Walmart with her two children.

Sgt. Enrique Carrillo said by midafternoon that a suspect was in custody and the public was no longer in danger.

Quezada’s 19-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son threw themselves to the ground, then ran out of the Walmart through an emergency exit. She said they were not hurt.

White House staff said President Donald Trump was briefed on the shooting and spoke about it with Attorney General William Barr and Gov. Abbott. “Reports are very bad, many killed,” the president tweeted.

Presidential candidate and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke appeared a bit shaken as he appeared at a candidate forum Saturday in Las Vegas shortly after news of the shooting in his hometown was reported.

O’Rourke, who said he had called his wife before taking the stage, said the shooting shatters “any illusion that we have that progress is inevitable” on tackling gun violence.

The Democrat said he heard early reports that the shooter might have had a military-style weapon, saying we need to “keep that (expletive) on the battlefield and do not bring it into our communities.”

“We have to find some reason for optimism and hope or else we consign ourselves to a future where nearly 40,000 people a year will lose their lives to gun violence and I cannot accept that,” O’Rourke said.

El Paso, which has about 680,000 residents, is in West Texas and sits across the border from Juarez, Mexico.

___
___

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Twenty people were killed and more than two dozen injured in a shooting Saturday in a busy shopping area in the Texas border town of El Paso, the state’s governor said.

Among the possibilities being investigated is whether it was a hate crime, the police chief said. Two law enforcement officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity identified the suspect taken into custody as 21-year-old Patrick Crusius. El Paso police haven’t released his name, but confirmed the gunman is from Allen near Dallas.

Police said another 26 people were injured and most were being treated at hospitals. Most of the victims were believed to have been shot at a Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall, they said, adding that the store was packed with as many as 3,000 people during the busy back-to-school shopping season.

“The scene was a horrific one,” said El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen, who described many of those hurt as having life-threatening injuries. He also said police found a post online that may have been written by the suspect — one reason authorities are looking at whether it was a hate crime.

El Paso, which has about 680,000 residents, is in West Texas and sits across the border from Juarez, Mexico.

Residents were quick to volunteer to give blood to the injured after the shooting, and police and military members were helping people look for missing loved ones.

“It’s chaos right now,” said Austin Johnson, an Army medic at nearby Fort Bliss, who volunteered to help at the shopping center and later at a school serving as a reunification center.

Adriana Quezada, 39, said she was in the women’s clothing section of Walmart with her two children when she “heard shots.”

“But I thought they were hits, like roof construction,” she said.

Her 19-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son threw themselves to the ground, then ran out of the store through an emergency exit. They were not hurt, Quezada said.

She said she saw four men, dressed in black, moving together firing guns indiscriminately. Police later said they believed the suspect was the “sole shooter” but were continuing to investigate reports that others were involved.

El Paso police Sgt. Robert Gomez said the suspect, who used a rifle, was arrested without incident.

The shooting came less than a week after a gunman opened fire on a California food festival. Santino William Legan, 19, killed three people and injured 13 others last Sunday at the popular Gilroy Garlic Festival, and died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Ryan Mielke, a spokesman for University Medical Center of El Paso, said 13 people were brought to the hospital with injuries after the Texas shooting, including one who died. Two of the injured were children who were being transferred to El Paso Children’s Hospital, he said. He wouldn’t provide additional details on the victims.

Eleven other victims were being treated at Del Sol Medical Center, hospital spokesman Victor Guerrero said. Those victims’ ages ranged from 35 to 82, he said.

Gov. Greg Abbott, who confirmed the number of victims at a news conference, called the shooting “a heinous and senseless act of violence” and said the state had deployed a number of law enforcement officers to the city. President Donald Trump tweeted: “Reports are very bad, many killed.”

Presidential candidate and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke appeared a bit shaken as he appeared at a candidate forum Saturday in Las Vegas shortly after news of the shooting in his hometown was reported. The Democrat said the shooting shatters “any illusion that we have that progress is inevitable” on tackling gun violence.

He said he heard early reports that the shooter might have had a military-style weapon, saying we need to “keep that (expletive) on the battlefield. Do not bring it into our communities.”

“We have to find some reason for optimism and hope or else we consign ourselves to a future where nearly 40,000 people a year will lose their lives to gun violence and I cannot accept that,” O’Rourke said.

El Paso has become a focal point of the immigration debate, drawing Trump in February to argue that walling off the southern border would make the U.S. safer, while city residents and O’Rourke led thousands on a protest march past the barrier of barbed wire-topped fencing and towering metal slats.

O’Rourke stressed that border walls haven’t made his hometown safer. The city’s murder rate was less than half the national average in 2005, the year before the start of its border fence. Before the wall project started, El Paso had been rated one of the three safest major U.S. cities going back to 1997.

Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, also said the El Paso shooting suspect wasn’t on her group’s radar screen prior to the shooting.

“We had nothing in our files on him,” Beirich wrote in an email.

The shooting is the 21st mass killing in the United States in 2019, and the fifth public mass shooting. Before Saturday, 96 people had died in mass killings in 2019 — 26 of them in public mass shootings.

The AP/USATODAY/Northeastern University mass murder database tracks all U.S. homicides since 2006 involving four or more people killed, not including the offender, over a short period of time regardless of weapon, location, victim-offender relationship or motive. The database shows that the median age of a public mass shooter is 28, significantly lower than the median age of a person who commits a mass shooting of their family.

Since 2006, 11 mass shootings — not including Saturday’s — have been committed by men who are 21 or younger.

———-

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — Multiple fatalities are reported and  many others were seriously injured and at least one suspect was in custody after a shooting Saturday at a shopping mall in the Texas border town of El Paso, hospital officials and police said.

Police responded in the early afternoon to an active shooter scene at the Cielo Vista Mall, near Interstate 10 on the east side of the city, and were advising people to stay away from the area and to look for missing family members at a school being used as a reunification area. Police and witnesses said at least some of the shootings happened in a Walmart in the shopping complex.

Ryan Mielke, a spokesman for University Medical Center of El Paso, said 12 people were brought to the hospital with injuries, including one that died. Two of the injured were children who were being transferred to El Paso Children’s Hospital, he said. He declined to provide additional details on the victims.

Eleven other victims were being treated at Del Sol Medical Center, according to hospital spokesman Victor Guerrero. He said those victims ages ranged from 35 to 82.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the shooting “a heinous and senseless act of violence” and said the state had deployed a number of law enforcement officers to the city.

A family of three was among a dozen people waiting outside a bus station. They were trying to return to their car that was in a blocked-off Walmart parking lot.

“I heard the shots but I thought they were hits, like roof construction,” said Adriana Quezada, 39, who was in the women’s clothing section of Walmart with her two children.

Sgt. Enrique Carrillo said by midafternoon that a suspect was in custody and the public was no longer in danger.

Quezada’s 19-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son threw themselves to the ground, then ran out of the Walmart through an emergency exit. She said they were not hurt.

White House staff said President Donald Trump was briefed on the shooting and spoke about it with Attorney General William Barr and Gov. Abbott. “Reports are very bad, many killed,” the president tweeted.

Presidential candidate and former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke appeared a bit shaken as he appeared at a candidate forum Saturday in Las Vegas shortly after news of the shooting in his hometown was reported.

O’Rourke, who said he had called his wife before taking the stage, said the shooting shatters “any illusion that we have that progress is inevitable” on tackling gun violence.

The Democrat said he heard early reports that the shooter might have had a military-style weapon, saying we need to “keep that (expletive) on the battlefield and do not bring it into our communities.”

“We have to find some reason for optimism and hope or else we consign ourselves to a future where nearly 40,000 people a year will lose their lives to gun violence and I cannot accept that,” O’Rourke said.

El Paso, which has about 680,000 residents, is in West Texas and sits across the border from Juarez, Mexico.

___

SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Kansas man on alleged child sex crimes.

On Thursday, police responded to a Wichita hospital regarding a possible sexual assault of a juvenile victim, according to officer Charley Davidson. Investigators developed probable cause that lead to the arrest of 45-year-old Ayton Griffin. He and the victim knew each other.

Griffin is being held on a bond of $150,000 on requested charges of of aggravated indecent liberties with a child and indecent solicitation of a child, according to the online jail records.

The case will be presented to the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, according to Davidson.

SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting and and have a person of interest in custody.

On July 19, police issued an alert in an attempt to locate 44-year-old Andre Jerome Wallace  in connection with a shooting that occurred in the in the 3300 block of SE Irvingham in Topeka on July 18, according to Lt. Andrew Beightel.

On Friday,  United State’s Marshals arrested Wallace in Wichita, according to Police Lt. Aaron Jones.

Police have not reported any requested charges against Wallace who remains in custody in Harvey County, according to online jail records.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Swarms of mayflies have emerged from under water along the Missouri River and are caking windshields on stretches of road between Omaha and Kansas City, forcing drivers to pull over and clean up the mess.

Mayflies spend 99% of their lives in water, but they rise when they become winged adults to take part in a mating swarm. They quickly die after that.

But the few days they spend mating are a nuisance.

“They are atrocious. They are horrid,” said Pam Frana, a membership specialist for the Nebraska City Tourism and Commerce Department. “Flooding brought those and stirred them up.”

The mayflies are piling on windshields so much that Dominator Fuel in Rock Port, Missouri, sold out of windshield wiper fluid. Other gas stations report they’ve gone through twice the usual amount.

“The windshields are completely covered,” said Chandra McCarty, a cashier at Dominator.

Mayflies may be an irritant to humans, but they’re a good source of food for fish and reptiles. The insects are drawn to light and have attracted frogs looking for a late-night feast.

At the Rockport gas station, they’ve been seeing 30 to 40 a night. They sit in front of the doors, lured by the bugs.

“They try to come up and come in,” McCarty said.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

“It used to be so bad people couldn’t see when they were driving,” said Andrew Wagner, who works in Hamburg, Iowa. “It’s getting a lot better since the flooding is going down.”

Urban entomologist Jody Green, an educator with the Lancaster County Extension Service, said mayfly hatches are actually a yearly event.

“As an entomologist, I would relish seeing them, but I am sure it might even gross me out, too, if I couldn’t help but step and squish them,” Green said.

BARTON COUNTY-For the third time this week the Barton County Sheriff’s Office has taken a suspected methamphetamine dealer into custody.

Just after 7a.m. Saturday, deputies and detectives conducted a traffic stop on a 1999 Oldmobile Alero near the intersection of 10th Street and Kiowa Road at the east city limits of Great Bend, according to Sheriff Bellendir.

During the course that traffic stop, officers discovered a quantity of methamphetamine. It is believed the drugs were in route to Great Bend for distribution.

Arrested at the scene was Kevin “Adam” Pekarek, 37, of Hutchinson.

Pekarek was transported to the Barton County jail where he was booked on two counts of possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. One of those counts, stems from an earlier investigation. He is being held in the Barton County jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond on each count.

“Distribution of methamphetamine and its use remains the single most serious issue facing the Sheriff’s Office. We remain committed to curb its use in our county,” said Bellendir.

MANHATTAN — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect for alleged sex crimes.

On Friday, detectives with the Riley County Police Department made a probable cause arrest of Robert Iacobellis, 60, Manhattan, for the offenses of Rape and Aggravated Indecent Liberties with a Child.  He is being held on a $500,000 bond, according to the police department arrest report.

Due to the nature of the alleged crimes and the ongoing investigation, police released no additional information.

.

By LYNN HORSLEY  for the Kansas News Service

While residents are in an uproar this summer over residential property assessments in Jackson County, Missouri, an equally important battle is underway in Johnson County, Kansas, where big box stores are successfully challenging major increases in their commercial property values.

The trend could significantly reduce future tax dollars for Johnson County schools, libraries and cities. Government leaders are worried and trying to plan for worst case situations.

“That is a scenario that is catastrophic, in my opinion, to the city,” Overland Park City Manager Bill Ebel told the city council in mid-July. “Potentially 25-30% of our property tax revenue could be at stake there.”

At issue are the county appraisals for large retailers such as Walmart, Target, Bass Pro, Home Depot and Walgreens. The companies argue the county has overvalued their stores by 30% to 40%. So far, they’ve won some major rulings from the Kansas Board of Tax Appeals. If those rulings stand, it could eventually reduce their property tax bills by millions of dollars.

Johnson County is appealing those rulings to the courts, and the companies have been paying their taxes under protest. But County Chairman Ed Eilert warns that if the rulings stand, it could require hefty refunds to the stores and shift the tax burden to small property owners.

“It will be a big, big impact on the tax base,” Eilert told KCUR.

Eilert said he worries it could eventually lower tax payments not just from dozens of big box stores but from shopping centers, office, grocery and industrial businesses. And as those businesses see their taxes go down, homeowners could see their taxes go up.

“They would have to pick up a bigger share of the tax burden and that would be mom and pop businesses and residential property,” he said.

Attorneys for the big box retailers say the budget fears are overblown, and the county appraiser is using the wrong approach to value these properties for tax purposes.

The retailers won a decision on June 28, when the Kansas Board of Tax Appeals ruled that Johnson County had overvalued 11 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores by $60 million in both 2016 and 2017. The county appraised the stores collectively at about $175 million, while the appeals board set the value at about $115 million.

That would lower Walmart’s collective annual tax bill in Johnson County from about $5.5 million to about $3.5 million.

The retailers began appealing after their property values and tax bills shot up dramatically between 2015 and 2016. The Johnson County appraiser’s office says those increases were warranted because data from 2015 sales showed the county’s commercial appraisals that year were too low.

County officials say the property value should be based on its worth to the current owners, compared to stores of the same quality and use.

The retailers, however, argue the county should just be valuing the land and the buildings, said Linda Terrill, a Johnson County lawyer who is president of the American Property Tax Counsel, a national organization of real estate tax attorneys.

“It shouldn’t matter whether the sign says Betty’s Five & Dime or Lord & Taylor,” she said. “It’s how you sell your house. You don’t care who lives there before or if they won the lottery.”

Some critics call that a “dark store” theory, saying that for tax purposes, these profitable businesses want to treat their stores as if they are vacant.

But Terrill said the dark store label is unfair, and that the lawful way to evaluate the real estate is without regard to the success of the existing business.

“This could be like a tsunami,” Johnson County Commissioner Becky Fast said. “It’s just one after another.”

Fast noted that Johnson County isn’t alone. Big box stores have challenged their property tax bills in Wichita and in other Midwestern states including Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, with varying degrees of success.

The Johnson County appeals could take several years to make their ways through the courts.

No one is panicking yet, but they are monitoring the situation. Ebel, the Overland Park city manager, has cautioned that the Walmart and Target decisions could lead to a cascade of other businesses also successfully appealing their values.

He said it’s difficult to plan, but at some point he would have to “start making decisions on how to curb spending to accommodate the loss of tax revenue.”

The biggest impact would be on the schools, which rely heavily on property taxes.

Shawnee Mission School Superintendent Michael Fulton discussed that possibility at a July 22 school board meeting. He said the budget implications aren’t yet clear, but could become more apparent next year.

“It’s really important that you plan for the worst, because if you don’t and there’s a big bill that comes due it can really send you into a tailspin,” he told the school board. “It’ll cause major issues when and if the ruling comes down and is upheld.”

Devin Wilson, a parent of two children in the Shawnee Mission School District and a candidate for school board, said the public needs to be more aware of the potential consequences.

“That’s my biggest concern, that it would have an immediate effect of lessening funding for Johnson County schools,” Wilson said.

At a county commission budget hearing July 29, Overland Park resident Julie Berggren told the commission she was “extremely worried” that if the county loses its appeals, the tax burden will fall hard on residents.

Commissioners responded that if tax money drops, they will manage the budget as they have during economic downturns. But they acknowledged it could be a challenge.

At least one city, Roeland Park, is already seeing a budget impact. A recent settlement between the county and Lowe’s lowered its tax bill, requiring Roeland Park to refund $350,000 to the company. The city had planned to spend that money on Roe Boulevard improvements but is now using other funds, said finance director Jennifer Jones-Lacy.

If the Walmart, CVS and Walgreens stores in Roeland Park also reduce their tax bills, it could affect other capital improvement projects.

“It could potentially reduce what we do,” Jones-Lacy said. “It’s all a guessing game at this point.”

Tom Cox, a Kansas legislator from Shawnee, says he can see both sides of the argument. On one hand, he believes the county boosted commercial appraisals too dramatically in 2016.

“They went bold and risked it, but they’re getting their hand slapped hard,” Cox said. Still, he questions how the stores can be valued regardless of the occupant.

He says the issue will most likely have to be resolved by the courts, rather than by the Kansas Legislature.

Fast, the county commissioner, says if the courts side with the companies, it may require some hard decisions.

“Do we have to look at shifting the burden to residential property taxes or do we look at significant program cuts?” she asked. “I think that will need a lot of community conversation.”

Lynn Horsley is a freelance journalist and was a veteran reporter for The Kansas City Star. Follow her on Twitter @LynnHorsley.